Japan holds 3 Australian anti-whaling activists who boarded ship

JUST WATCHED

Three anti-whaling activists detained

MUST WATCH

Story highlights

The three activists could face criminal charges in Japan, an Australian official says

The men are being questioned after boarding a patrol ship involved in the whale hunt

The Australian government is working to secure the activists' release

Environmental groups have clashed in previous years with the the whale-hunting vessels

Three Australian activists are being held aboard a Japanese ship Monday after illegally boarding the vessel to protest Japan's annual whale hunt in Antarctic waters.

The three men are not yet under arrest, but are being questioned by Japan's Coast Guard, a spokesman for Japan's Fisheries Agency said Monday, declining to be identified as is customary in Japan.

The Australian attorney-general, Nicola Roxon, said that her government was working to secure the release of the men, but that she believed they could face criminal charges in Japan.

Video footage released by the anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd shows the three men, from the environmental group Forest Rescue Australia, approaching the Japanese vessel on a small boat on Sunday.

The video shows their boat pull up next to Japan's Shonan Maru #2, a patrol vessel supporting Japan's whaling mission in the Antarctic waters. A voice from the small boat calls out, "Go, go, go!" as the men slip onto the Japanese ship. In the background, voices in Japanese scream in alarm, saying "They're boarding!"

Sea Shepherd described the three activists -- Geoffrey Owen Tuxworth, 47, Simon Peterffy, 44, and Glen Pendlebury, 27 -- as "prisoners." The organization said the men boarded the vessel to force Japan's fleet to stop hunting whales.

Japan annually hunts whales despite a worldwide moratorium, utilizing a loophole in the law that allows for killing the mammals for scientific research.

Each year, environmental groups like Sea Shepherd face off with Japan's hunters in a high seas drama that has led to collisions of ships, the detaining of activists and smoke bombs fired back and forth between the groups.